Official

Uniti EV-maker gets more than $1 million with crowdfunding

The Swedish company plans for a prototype in 2017, with sales starting in 2020.

With more than $1 million spoken for via its crowd-funding efforts, a Swedish-based electric-vehicle maker looks to have its prototype on the road by next year. Uniti, which we wrote about last month, finished its Fundedbyme campaign last week with a balance of more than 1.23 million euros ($1.3 million). With 570 investors ponying up from 45 countries, each funder kicked in an average of about $2,300. That's about 10 percent of what the automaker says it will charge for the car.

Uniti, which expects to go public because of its number of investors, isn't shy about its product, calling the electric city vehicle "the most deliberate reinvention of the automobile in modern times." The company posted a six-minute video outlining its world-domination plans here and says its cars will be made out of "premium sustainable materials" (whatever that means). More importantly, the startup will first target a Western European millennial contingent that it says totals more than 30 million people alone. Uniti says its car will take on established EVs such as Renault's Twizy and Zoe, and added that it may also compete against the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3.

The company, which also has received research-phase funding from Lund University and LU Maxlab, plans to start selling its EVs by the end of the decade, and says it has more than 140 non-binding pre-orders for it. Notably, Uniti also said the car will have autonomous-driving features and is closer in spirit to an electronics product than a traditional automobile. On that note, Uniti also said that the vehicle will be sold online in a distribution process that may involve door-to-door deliveries.

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